Entries from January 2006

(more on frotter--including pronunciation--at the end of this edition)

Citation du Jour: Il faut voyager pour frotter et limer sa cervelle contre celle d'autrui. One must travel to rub and polish one's brain against that of others. --Michel de Montaigne..............................A Day in a French Life...In the sleepy outskirts of Lorgues (southeast France) I park next to an open barn, leaving my parapluie* in the car before walking through a gentle rain, down the slippery moss-covered path to an old bastide* where an English painter and chef has built her nid d'amour* in one 'branch' of an old rectangular maison.*

Arriving at the front of the two story country house, I bypass the porte d'entrée* and, following the chef's directions, turn left toward the steps on the side of the building. Climbing the escaliers* just opposite the centuries-old tilleul* tree, I admire a wicker loveseat on the terrace above. Its fluffy coussins,* I imagine, have been stored for the winter.

The front door of Tess's apartment opens into the kitchen where the artist's watercolors (which vary from the woods of Vermont to the Drôme's lavender fields) line the entrance and are offset by a multicolored chandelier* sconce. The kitchen table, in the center of the room, holds a stack of the last six issues of Beaux Arts. Hung along the wall to the left, above the sink, Provençal pottery from the seaside town of Bandol is whimsically outlined in a string of tiny white lights; beneath, a crowded shelf runs the length of the narrow kitchen, an eclectic assortment of tea tins sits at the end of it next to a window whose faded red shutter opens upon a field of sleeping vines. On the back wall above a butter-yellow armoire, sits an old metal tub with sunflowers painted across its front.

Having toured the living room, stopping to admire an oil abstract of the Nile, I pause in the hall to view a series of framed sketches--costume designs from 1949--drawn by Tess's mom, a former couturière for the late John Huston, filmmaker extraordinaire.

In the bedroom, stretched out over a cozy quilted bedcover, or "boutis," I spy Cabas (slang for 'wicker basket'), the slumbering black cat. On yet another bookshelf, a collection of little boxes in porcelain, glass and wood--each with its own story and some with treasures inside. Even the bathroom, painted sea foam green, has its charm with its quirky cistern toilet which can only beproperly flushed by climbing up on the dainty seat to reach the upper chain. In the last room--the artist's atelier--on the easel, a large figurative oil painting of a vase of pivoines* is underway; on the table against the wall, designs for future paintings.

I am making my way back to the kitchen when the spirit of my friend's home takes hold and a string of playful words escapes me, falling from my lips in one admirative gasp:

"I wish some of this would rub off on me!"

My shoulders take up where my words have left off, shimmying over to a selection of beautiful objects; there, my back follows suit and, in one abrupt turn, I find my dos* in a mock frottement* pretending to rub up against the decor as if to underline my spoken wish.

Dictionary of French Slang and Colloquial Expressionslists approximately 4,500 common slang words and colloquial expressions. Entries include grammatical information, the definition in English, a sentence or phrase to illustrate usage, and an English translation of the example and, where applicable, a corresponding English slang expression. Each entry also identifies the word or phrase by type: student or youth slang, political slang, literary slang, and criminal and drug-related slang.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

After lunch I quickly clear off the table, making room for my daughter to do her math. Jackie sets down her paper, her pencil bag, and her new compass (the kind with two "legs" joined by a hinge—and not the kind that points to the North Pole).

I watch her work the compass until a series of swirls appear on the paper beneath it. I have never used one of these kom-pah (as Jackie pronounces it) and I am fascinated that a simple tool can produce such an intricate design.

My daughter is so deep in concentration that I am startled when she pauses to say:

I watch the appreciative girl as she guides the compass's pencil in a repetitive to and fro motion, making a series of C's, or arcs, that begin to overlap one another as she moves the metal-nosed compass leg from one tip of the arc to another point along circle until a pattern begins to emerge.

"I am making it for my maître," Jackie explains. I recall the teacher, who she is fond of; he has a knack for choosing good books and he recently told her that "Reading is power!" a thought that encourages Jackie, who enjoys words and writing, but who struggles with math.

My daughter begins another symmetrical design, placing one of the sharp metal legs of the compass into the center of the paper then easing the pencil leg down until its metal nose touches the paper. First she traces a complete circle. Next, she moves the compass, placing its metal nose at another point along the line of the circle. Light feathery swoops follow, the to's and fro's guided by my daughter's steady poignet.

I think about how long it will take her before all those swoops will add up to one of those elaborate designs, and I am impressed by the artist's patience.

"Do you know what this is called?" Jackie look up.

"No," I reply.

"It's called une rosace."

I have to look up the word in a French encyclopedia where I learn that the term is most often used in architecture and design: it is those round stained-glass "rose" windows in cathedrals; it is also the circular decorative molding on certain old French ceilings and an intricate rose-shaped motif in lacework.

Among all the French words my daughter has taught me, rosace may be the least useful in speech (not like the ever-groovy, ever-utterable chiche). That said, I am now seeing rosace patterns everywhere! Thanks to my little language teacher, who believes that reading is power and that words are as strong as a rose's scent... I am seeing my surroundings with fresh-eyes, through rosey lenses.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Related expressions:être cloué à son lit / au lit = "to be nailed to the bed," to be very ill in bedclouer au sol = to pin down (person), to ground (plane)rester clouer sur place = to be rooted to the spotclouer le bec à quelqu'un = "to nail someone's beak shut," to reduce someone to silenceêtre au fond de son lit = "to be at the bottom of one's bed," to be very ill in bed

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

When I am old and wrinkled—well into the troisième âge—I want to race along the shores of Brittany on my Mobylette, that most groovy of French bikes with an engine!

I want to be an eccentric vieille dame. I don't want to care about what anyone thinks, as long as I am not imposing myself on their philosophie de vie. I'll ride my old bike along the seashore. I'll wear black goggles and wrap a long wool scarf, in orange potiron, around my neck. Off I'll fly, scarf ends flowing in the wind.

I'll let go of the pedals, WHEEEEEEEEE... and sing a song by Yves Montand—or a tune from Les Misérables—depending on my mood.

I'll pack a picnic with all my favoris. Inside the panier there'll be boiled eggs, anchoïade, Gratin Dauphinois, pungent cheese, a soft baguette and a flask of Earl Grey. There'll be tangerines to eat and a few squares of dark chocolate.

I'll gather delicate coquilles from the foamy seashore and tie them to my shoes. You'll hear the jingle of seashells when I pedal by.

My voice will be agreeably hoarse, not from les Gauloises or le vin but from whistling all the day long—a habit I'll have picked up at the beginning of the century, when a certain Frenchwoman cautioned: "Les femmes ne sifflent pas! Women don't whistle!" That's when I puckered up and blew another tune... and another... and then one more!

I hope to have a dear old friend, one who is much more excentrique than I. She'll dye her white hair rouge vif or aubergine. We'll tchatche about the current generation and how people need to loosen up and 'profiter un peu de la vie,' enjoy life a little, like us.

I'll say, "Pépé—les oursins!" and my old man will return from the rocky pier where he has spent the morning hunting sea urchins. When he cracks open their coquilles, revealing the mousse-like orange roe, I will remember that real treasures don't come with a price tag.

I want to live near the seagulls so that I may slumber beneath their cries and wake up to the whoosh of the sea. I'll push myself to a stand, smooth back my white locks, adjust a faux tortoiseshell comb, and say "Dieu merci!" for another day.

Before I tuck myself into bed at night I will, once again, empty mes coquilles into an old metal cookie tin, a treasure from long ago. Looking over to my seashells, I will give thanks: my cherished, tired tin runneth over.

Expressions:rentrer dans sa coquille = to withdraw into one's shellsortir de sa coquille = to come out of one's shell

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

gargouiller (gar-goo-yay) verb to growl (in the stomach), to gurgle, to rumble

[from the word "gargouille" (waterspout) and the 'drole' sound that water makes inside it]

French Proverb:Ce sont les tonneaux vides qui font le plus de bruit. It's the empty barrels that make the most noise.

................................A Day in a French Life....

Jean-Marc invited me to Paris and the Champagne region where he would be presenting his wine portfolio as well as looking for new products (read: champagne!) to offer for export. The trip would be short--one night, two days--and we would need to leave for the airport by 4:30 a.m., but if that was okay with me then I was welcome to join him.

At 4:25 a.m. I am standing by the front door, overnight bag tucked under arm, having kissed my mother-in-law goodbye and having thanked her for watching the kids. By 11 a.m. we are stuck in traffic in Paris's first arrondissement with Jean-Marc noting how our flight from Nice to Paris took less time than our rental car trip from the Charles de Gaulle airport to the city center. While hefights traffic I look out the window to discover Paris's high-end food district where elegant épiceries fines* like Fauchon and Hédiard and the posh caviar boutique, Prunier, line up.

We find parking and before long we are in a sleek, high-tech elevator. "Are you sure it is okay that I am with you for your meeting?" I ask. "Oui, t'inquiète pas," Yes, don't worry, Jean-Marc assures.

The reception area is contemporary Italian and the geometrical chairs and sofa would look good in any swank Parisian apartment. The CEO appears. He is a former model who worked for the top couture houses before trading fashion for fine foods. It is clear that he still has connections in the fashion world considering his soigné* appearance. Jean-Marc explains that he has brought me along, to which the CEO says dryly, "Oui, je vois," Yes, I see.

He directs us to a conference table which is almost as long as the Concorde but without wings. I place my parka and hand-me-down purse on a chair and that's when I notice the CEO's shoes, which shine. I look down to our shoes, my husband's and mine: Jean-Marc's are passable (no need to polish suede) while my boots are dull.

The receptionist, who looks like she just stepped off the cover of ELLE, sets out mineral water and asks if we would like an espresso. I say no, realizing coffee will only make my nerves feel more out of control in this very controlled environment. Next, we are introduced to an associate whose hair is tied back in a neat ponytail and whose outfit complements the uberswank surroundings: symmetrical, modern, chic. After a brief presentation including each company's purpose, the CEO, his associate, Jean-Marc and I sit facing each other, the narrow width of the Concorde table separating us. A quiet fills the room as information is digested and thoughts are gathered. When the silence becomes so pure that it approaches the perfection of every other symmetric element in the Parisian office with the Italian decor, then, and only then does my stomach roar, offering up one of its most mortifying gargouillements.*

The Ultimate French Review and Practice: Mastering French Grammar for Confident Communication.A good grasp of grammar enables the foreign-language learner to build skill and confidence in communication. Here's the "ultimate," painless way for intermediate and advanced learners to brush up on the rules. Each grammatical concept is explained and then illustrated with lively sentence examples; extensive exercises offer practice at applying this knowledge in everyday conversation. Also included are "culture notes," authentic documents, vocabulary boxes, and verb charts, as well as a full answer key and index.

Uncorked : The Science of Champagne. "The latest champagne science explained in blissfully plain English by a French scientist." --Tom Stevenson, author of "Christie's World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine"

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Photo taken at the restaurant "La Grotte" at the end of Marseilles, in Callelongue...

Dédommagement

(day-doh-mazh-mahn)

noun, masculine

compensation.

In a menswear boutique in Draguignan, I stand at the comptoir, hesitating between the powder-blue chemise and the olive-green one. As I hem and haw, Jackie taps her foot, says either shirt will look good on Papa, and sighs for the nième time. I remind her that if she is patient, I will buy her the mood ring she has been asking for—the one all her friends are sporting at school.

Next, the little bells hanging from the shop's entrance begin to jingle as the door opens and a small woman is swept in with the wind.

"Bonjour, Messieurs Dames!" she says, shivering from the cold mistral. The little woman has a purse hanging from the fold of her left arm and she is holding a small boîte in her right hand. Her white hair falls just below her shoulders and is held back with an intricate tortoiseshell comb. She is wearing a dress, nylons, and little heels, which is more effort than a lot of women living this far north of the Côte d'Azur put into suiting up in wintertime.

"Tell Hervé it is from Madame Kakapigeon!" the woman with the box and the heels says.

I look down to the blur of blue and green shirts and mutter the name I have just overheard, not sure I have heard correctly. "Kakapigeon"? Its sound causes me to blush. Poor thing, to have to go through life with such a name!

"Tenez." Madame holds out the box, offering it to the saleswoman. "I'm off to the bank now! Je n'ai plus un radis!"

Our heads bob back and forth as my daughter and I witness the quirky exchange between the lively, gift-toting grandma and the store clerk. My eyes return to the vendeuse, who has taken the box of chocolates with its pretty cloth ribbon.

"Au revoir, mes chéries," says the woman without a radish and, with that, the door swings shut making the jingle bells do their thing.

"What did she say her name was?" I ask, indiscreetly.

The saleslady smiles. "She calls herself 'Madame Caca Pigeon' because she is always feeding the pigeons from her balcony, just above our magasin. The well-fed birds are always 'messing' out in front of the boutique. Madame is sorry for the salissure, but it doesn't stop her from feeding her feathered friends. So every year, about this time, she comes in with her box of chocolates... compliments of 'Madame Caca Pigeon'."

Note: A final paragraph was removed from this story. I hope that the vignette will stand on its own without the "overworked" ending that has been deleted. If you feel this story needs a punch line, let me know in the comments box!

French Expression:ne pas/ne plus avoir un radis = to not/no longer have a cent (or a penny) to one's name

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

Citation du Jour:Puisque je personnifie la sauvage sur scène, j'essaie d'être civilisée dans la vie. Since I personify the savage on the stage, I try to be as civilized as possible in daily life. --Josephine Baker

A Day in a French Life...by Kristin Espinasse

Italian Josephine made homemade pizza the size of a hamburger patty, only there wasn't any viande: just a bony anchovy and a meaty olive or two. When she had the energy, she delivered her Italian pies and stayed to watch you enjoy them. And she never charged.

"Ça m'occupe." It keeps me busy, she would say, simply. As I ate, she would sit facing me with her cane, her knitted shawl, and her buckled shoes and reminisce about an American friend, whose name she shared, and the adventures they had back in the 50's along the Côte d'Azur, when one ran an Italian épicerie and the other ran away from Paris. I listened, but mostly studied Josey, whose dark eyes, once dull, now sparkled.

The last time Josephine showed up at my door with one of her trademark mini pizzas she was carrying a black-and-white photograph.

"I have something to show you," she said. We sat at the table, I in my one-size-fits-all dress (weeks away from giving birth to my second child) and Josey with her shawl and cane and buckled shoes, the black-and-white photo between us. The scratched and faded image revealed the two glowing Josephines: one "café," the other "au lait." The women were dressed in satin kimonos and holding umbrellas, smiles as big as the complicity they shared. I studied the old photo from afar when suddenly my Josey mentioned that her friend loved to sing and dance....

Sing. Dance. Josephine! That's when I grabbed the photo from the table and viewed, up close, the veritable, the one and only Josephine Baker--the celebrated American danseuse (and sometime secret agent) known to appear at the Paris Folies in nothing more than a jupe made of bananas, her pet leopard, Chiquita, in tow.

My excitement was cut short when Josey told me that she was moving to Saint-Raphael, that her daughter could no longer look after her here in St. Maximin. I quietly set down the photo and looked at my friend as a lump formed in my throat. C'est toujours comme ça, I thought bitterly, just when you meet someone--the kind of person you can just sit with and say nothing to and not feel awkward, the kind that makes a little pizza pie for you because they are thinking of you in your absence--they up and move to a faraway city!

Before Josephine left, she pushed the photo across the table. "C'est pour toi," she said, in her soft voice. I tried to tell her that I could not accept her photo, that she should keep it, but she insisted. I couldn't take Josey's only photo of her with her legendary friend...unless...unless it wasn't the only one? Perhaps there were others? Yes! There must be others of those "girls" in the good ol' days--other snapshots--with leopards and banana skirts and maybe a feather boa or two!

I watched as my Josey padded out the door, little steps with her big-buckle shoes. She seemed so fragile that you might have taken her for a broken-winged bird, but for the leopard-printed tracks in her wake.

***

Postnote: I do have a photo of these women, here, somewhere... I promise to post it when I find it. Until then, will you bug me about it ever once in a while?

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

I looked over to discover his eyes for the first time: a shade of blue mimicking the waters off the coast of Brittany when the sun casts light across its surface. I noticed his skin, rippled like the vagues* that rush in with the morning tide. I thought about our space suits, not the silver combinaisons* that astronauts wear, but the bodies that we inhabit. How time erodes them! Fortyyears separated us, the measure, but a speck in the cosmos. When my eyes refocused, I saw a boyish face on the man in 24A. The wrinkles were gone, the white hair now foncé.*

He told me that he had 'escaped' from his nursing home in Fréjus and was headed to Vegas. I learned he was from Brittany, retired from the shipyard and that, as a child, he herded sheep out to pasture. "It was the best time in my life," he said, "far away from la foule.*"

When his story slowed and the tremblements* left his arms I said: "La foule upsets me, too," and shared a few personal misadventures, times when my body betrayed my own mind or vice versa, when a crowd swelled to monster size and suddenly, unexpectedly--

"I passed out in the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport once," I admitted, explaining that the combination of so many foreign voices, the grilling from the stone-faced and gun-toting security guards combined with hunger and fatigue had me 'falling into the apples'* as the French say, or fainting.

Warm, soft hands, weather-beaten from 79 summers beneath the northern sun now held my own. For a moment, and for two unquiet strangers, the reality of travelling in cramped quarters with so many people was forgotten. The man in 24A had asked permission to read my palm. Next, he told me I would live a long life.

When the beverage cart came to a halt for the last time, he said: "No, merci." That's when he asked me for a date by way of the most original proposition that I have ever received."Can we meet at 11:30 Saturday night?" he said."11:30?""Yes. Onze heures et demi.* Just think of me, and I'll think of you--for half an hour. I'll send positive energy your way. It will work. I practice télépathie* with the student interns at my nursing home. They get nervous about their upcoming exams and so I send them healing thoughts."

* * *I didn't mean to stand him up. The truth is, I fell asleep and missed our telepathic 'date'. "That's OK," he had said, in case I missed the hour. "Any time will do, actually. The important thing is to focus. To believe." * * *

I met an octogenarian who escaped from a French nursing home and hopped a plane to Vegas. He said he hadn't found security or happiness in confining himself from the world. That a sheltered life, finally, was no life for him. That, scared as he was to mix with 'la foule,' he had to do it. His words could have been my own. His adventure was beginning. And so was mine.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

We met on flight 83, leaving Nice, France for New York City. Little did I know that 45 minutes into the voyage I would be agreeing to a date with the man in seat 24A.

We didn't seem to have much in common. To start with, he graduated with the class of '45. As for me, I graduated from high school in '85.

* * *

I had made my way through first-class, admiring the soft plaid blankets neatly folded and awaiting the lucky travelers. The first-class blankets have a motif* while non-first-class blankets are plain. I noticed the seats in first-class, and how they reclined like the dos* of a yogi.

I headed to the back of the plane, where the seats narrowed, le monde* multiplied and babies shrieked from the fuss of travelers trying to settle in, as comfortably as possible, for an 8.5 hour flight. My breath grew short, and so I paused to respirer.*

The man in 24A sat silent, his blank stare slamming into the tablette* before him. I set down my purse, marking my seat, and reached up to the overhead bin to store my bag, the contents of which would be completely useless to me in the 20 hour voyage ahead, ending in Phoenix, Arizona. I pushed the bin shut, checking to make sure it wouldn't burst open mid-flight.

That is when I heard the formal greeting:

"Bonjour, madame.""Bonjour, monsieur," I replied.

He didn't say another word until the beverage cart came to a halt before the 25th row, at which point he raised an unsteady arm.

"Je voudrais une bière, s'il vous plaît," I'd like a beer, please.

When the flight attendant said, "That will be four euros or four dollars," he reached into a tan imperméable,* and struggled to find some cash.

The next time the cart halted, monsieur ordered another beer, having since found his wallet. When his cup went dry he shifted a bit and cleared his throat. That's when the paroles* slipped out, a fountain of meaningful words that would end with a proposition. But first, he would say:

Listen: hear Jean-Marc pronounce the word 'tablette': Download tablette2.wavExpressions:inscrire sur ses tablettes = to make a note of somethingrayer de ses tablettes = to no longer take into account something

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

At the last boulangerie* along rue Gambetta, not far from the lonely stone lavoir* and close enough to the square to throw an eye* on the kids as they run circles around the kiosk, I order a string,* a boat* and a restaurant (French bread classification according to shape--like a string or boat, and size--big enough to feed clients at a quaint bistro?).

La boulangère* calculates the total out loud and I empty my coin purse into my free hand, fishing out the littlest coins and minding the lint as I try to unload as many of the pièces jaunes* as I can get away with, dignified look and all. When I hand the collection over to the lady behind the register, she repeats the amount due and I realize I've shortchanged the baker. The line of people behind me grows and I fluster and reopen my hand to display what change remains. With nimble fingers the boulangère pecks out the correct monnaie* due as I watch the coins disappear with the regard of a three-year-old.

Ongoing support from readers like you helps me to continue doing what I love most: sharing vocabulary and cultural insights via these personal stories from France. Your contribution is vivement apprécié! Donating via PayPal is easy when you use the links below. Merci infiniment! Kristi♥ Send $10♥ Send $25♥Send the amount of your choice

"Bonjour, Kristin, I have enjoyed your blog now for a great number of years, watching your children grow up, your moves from house to house, enjoying your stories and photos and your development as a writer. It's way past time for me to say MERCI with a donation to your blog...which I've done today. Bien amicalement!"--Gabrielle

BONJOUR. Je m'appelle Kristi. I write to you weekly from our home in France. Each post is created for maximum French learning. My stories and books are sprinkled with useful vocabulary and provide insights into real French life. Enjoy each quick, educational read--sign up here

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